First Aid Kit Adjust to Fame, Craft Best Album Yet

It's been six years since Klara and Johanna Söderberg were first discovered via pristine YouTube covers of Fleet Foxes and Johnny Cash, and two years since their breakout album, 2012's magnetic The Lion's Roar. Still, ask the Swedish sisters who perform as First Aid Kit how they are adjusting to fame, and they can't help but dismiss the notion they are any sort of famous.

"I can't really understand it," Klara, the younger of the pair, who handles lead vocal duties on the duo's country-tinged, harmony-drenched songs, told ELLE.com. "It's just strange." Added Johanna, who with her slightly deeper singing voice forms the bed onto which the twosome's harmonies rest: "It's so intense that when you're actually experiencing it you can't really understand and appreciate it. There's just so much going on!"

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While they may be apprehensive about their growing fame, which in recent times has reached new heights— after they performed for Paul Simon in their native Stockholm, the rock legend told them they reminded him of Simon and Garfunkel — First Aid Kit should hardly expect things to slow down anytime soon. Their latest album, the momentous Stay Gold (due on June 10), is their best, most mature effort to date, taking their already lush sound to new sonic proportions. Creating a "bigger" album, the Söderbergs said, wasn't necessarily a conscious decision. "But it sort of ended up that way," Johanna explained. They also worked with a 13-piece orchestra this go-round. "Anything you put strings on kind of gets an epic sound," she offered.

Speaking to the two young women, both overly polite and open to inquiry about their craft, and then listening to their gorgeous, beatific melodies, it's wondrous how much darkness and turmoil finds its way into their music through their plaintive lyrics. "I don't want to wait anymore/I'm tired of looking for answers," Klara sings on the spaghetti Western-style opener "My Silver Lining"; later, on "Shattered and Hollow," over gentle piano and chimes, she confesses, "I am in love and I am lost/But I'd rather be broken than empty"

But as the two self-professed longtime fans of country music said, being able to shroud their lyrically gritty music with surface-level beauty is part of the fun.

"That's something we love," Johanna said. "Especially with country music. [There are] these beautiful harmonies and then they sing about horrible situations or murders or cheating or getting drunk. It's really deep shit. But it's beautiful."

One of the more curious — and breathtaking — numbers on the new album is "Waitress Song": Klara envisions escaping her hectic life, running away, and becoming a waitress in middle-of-nowhere America. "I could move to a small town and become a waitress/Say my name was Stacey and I was figuring things out," she intones over a gently rolling acoustic guitar.

When asked what inspired a Swede like her to pen a romantic tribute to middle America, Klara responded with a chuckle.

"Just the idea of running away and living a quiet life and becoming a new person…"

Johanna cuts her off, adding: "It's really interesting!"

Klara continues. "I mean, I would never want to do that in reality. But it's a nice little fantasy."